Nintendo ends Wii production

Editor's note: Nintendo has since clarified that the manufacturing halt was meant to apply only to Japan, though MCV reports the console will also stop shipping to Europe. It will remain available in North America for the time being. The original story follows below.

Nintendo has ceased production of Wii, the motion-controlled system which became its best-selling home console ever. Its Japanese product page now notes that manufacturing has ended (via CVG), meaning that once the current stock sells out, the Wii will live on only as a memory--and perhaps as a hunk of plastic sitting in your closet.

More than 100.04 million units of the system were sold as of Nintendo's last report in June 2013. It debuted in the holiday season of 2006, when its launch title Wii Sports helped make it an instant craze with families worldwide.

Nintendo's two best-selling devices ever are Nintendo DS with 153.93 million units and the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, which sold 118.69 million combined. PlayStation 2 remains the best-selling console of all time, with 155 million units sold.

Though Wii's most succesful games were almost exclusively Nintendo titles, it still made a tremendous influence on the video game industry at large. Did you think that would be the case when you first saw Nintendo's strange, remote-controller system?